ALERT: State Moves to REMOVE Trump from Ballot

I may not support Donald Trump, but this is dirty pool. Donald Trump is on the ballot in Minnesota. But the communists there are trying to have him removed over technicalities. By commies, I mean the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). They have filed a lawsuit at the state Supreme Court seeking to remove his name from November’s ballot. I doubt that will work, but it does show how low they will go and how much they fear Donald Trump.

The statute in question says, “Presidential electors and alternates for the major political parties of this state shall be nominated by delegate conventions called and held under the supervision of the respective state central committees of the parties of this state.” When the MNGOP held its most recent delegate convention in May, party leadership didn’t elect alternate electors. Last month, MNGOP chair Keith Downey admitted to reporters that his party simply “forgot” to elect them. Donald Trump got on the ballot there at the very last minute.

From ThinkProgress:

The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) has filed a lawsuit in the state Supreme Court seeking the removal of Donald Trump’s name from November’s ballot.

A range of experts ThinkProgress spoke with on Friday, however, expect Trump’s name to appear. In fact, one political scientist said he thinks the lawsuit could inspire the Republican base to get to work on behalf of Trump.

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In the suit, DFL chair Ken Martin alleges that the Minnesota Republican Party (MNGOP) didn’t follow the proper procedure for selecting electors and alternate electors as laid out in state statute. Electors are the people who actually elect the president in the Electoral College following the general election.

There wasn’t enough time to convene another convention before the August 27th deadline. So, the workaround the MNGOP leadership came up with was to just appoint alternate electors themselves. But those alternate electors were appointed during a leadership meeting, not a delegate convention. Therefore, the DFL’s argument is that the MNGOP’s process didn’t comply with state law. Nonetheless, the Minnesota secretary of state green-lighted Trump’s name appearing on the ballot shortly after the MNGOP submitted its list of alternate electors.

These people are trying to nitpick the law and get Trump thrown off the ballot. It’s a specious argument.

Derek Muller, an associate professor of law at Pepperdine specializing in elections, said this: “There’s a judgement from the secretary of state that says ‘the Republican party has complied with the law,’ then you have Republicans who are saying ‘what we’ve done we think is in compliance with the law.’ So you have multiple actors, and the prospect of a court stepping in and saying ‘we’re going to remove a major party candidate because of alternate electors’ strikes me as quite unlikely,” Muller said. I fully agree with that assessment.

In fact, this lawsuit could backfire on Democrats and create more support for Trump in Minnesota. It would serve them right.

There should be a ruling next week. But make no mistake, the GOP didn’t get their ducks in a row in Minnesota and Trump’s campaign did not staff the state. If this falls through, he should not only blame the GOP, but himself. I think this, however, will swing in his favor… the court there has a history of deferring to the major parties in the state.

Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Terresa Monroe-Hamilton is an editor and writer for Right Wing News. She owns and blogs at NoisyRoom.net. She is a Constitutional Conservative and NoisyRoom focuses on political and national issues of interest to the American public. Terresa is the editor at Trevor Loudon's site, New Zeal - trevorloudon.com. She also does research at KeyWiki.org. You can email Terresa here. NoisyRoom can be found on Facebook and on Twitter.